Is anyone aware of existing research into human behaviour in the middle east. The traditional Arab dress and customs would suggests that the difference in human behaviour during evacuation could be significant when compared to that in the UK or other western countries.

From the literature that I have read, there does not appear to be much work related to differences between pedestrians from different cultures. I've conducted a small study comparing pedestrian behaviour on escalators in both Spain and China and compared the two. Amongst other things, typically we observed higher crowd densities in the Chinese data which supports work done by Tanaboriboon (http://www.evacmod.net/?q=node/145) who conducted a study in Singapore:

"The higher concentration obtained [OF PEOPLE IN A CROWD COMPARED TO WESTERN RESULTS] here could perhaps be explained by the small physique of Singaporeans and the amount of personal space generally required by Asians: Asians tend to require less personal space and are more tolerant to invasion of this space."

In addition:

"The characteristics of pedestrians in Singapore have been studied, and the results indicate that the Singaporean has a slower walking rate than his American counterpart. However, the maximum flow rate obtained here is higher than that obtained in the Western countries."

However, I am not aware of any studies which address specifically cultural differences comparing pedestrians in the middle-east and western countries.